The Citadel’s “crossroads” moment — a review with commentary

Posted on October 13, 2024 by Sandlapper Spike

This post basically serves to review and comment on an article published in The Post and Courier on Saturday, October 12. The writer of the story is Andrew Miller, regular P+C beat writer for The Citadel’s football program.

I appreciated this article. I don’t necessarily agree with everything stated in the piece, though most of those points of contention emanate from people quoted in the story, not Miller himself. I do quibble with certain aspects of the article that I think needed to include alternative, on-record opinions. There was also one “factoid” in the piece which was monumentally misleading. I’ll address that later.

Having said that, I was glad to see the feature published. It brings up multiple issues facing The Citadel and its department of athletics, all of which richly deserve public scrutiny.

I would encourage anyone at all interested in The Citadel to read the article.

I’ll break down my commentary by each portion of the story (excluding the introductory section).

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The bottom line

The athletic department is projected to lose nearly $2 million this year…[Operating expenses] in the 2021-22 academic year amounted to $3.2 million. The projected operational budget for this year is expected to be $5.5 million, or an increase of 71 percent.

To make ends meet, the budget was cut by 10 percent with reductions in scholarships for the current season, according to an athletic department source.

“We’re having to cut expenses and scholarships,” the source said.

The football team’s operating budget, which does not include scholarships, was cut $200,000 to $1 million. It also lost the equivalent of 2½ scholarships.

The basketball team experienced a similar fate, another source said.

But according to Walters, there have been no budget or scholarship cuts.

The school is projected to spend $4.7 million on scholarships this year, having spent $4.1 million in 2022 and 2023, Walters said.

“The coaches have a budget, and they have to manage that budget, but we need to give them more tools to help them out,” Walters said.

Two different sources told Andrew Miller that the department of athletics is undergoing budget and scholarship cuts — but this was denied by Gen. Walters. That is more than a little curious.

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Along those lines, there is something else worth noting that is not in the article.

If you go to the webpage for The Citadel’s Procurement Services Department, you will find a link to the school’s “Awards” site for procurement. This includes solicitations, sole sources, and the occasional emergency purchase.

It can be an interesting site to follow. Those perusing the page will see that The Citadel has a sole source justification for SoCon-mandated baseballs, for example, and will notice that the league also requires a specific vendor for video database and data analysis software.

The site also has a link to a sole source for a “Financial Consultant”. The advertisement for this sole source was posted on June 13 (expiring two weeks later). The school listed a potential contract amount of $250,000 (over the course of one year) for “a financial consultant to advise and assist in financial planning.”

That is a very generic description, but the person named as the sole source, Rick Kelly, is not generic at all. He is a former executive director of the S.C. Budget and Control Board, and later served as the Chief Financial Officer at the University of South Carolina. Kelly is an auditor by trade and has actually been hired as a consultant by The Citadel before (in July of 2020).

It is my understanding that Kelly recently completed an audit of The Citadel’s department of athletics, and that his findings are to be presented to the Board of Visitors in the near future — perhaps as soon as the BOV’s next scheduled meeting.

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Revenue sources

Walters hopes to renew a series of outdoor concerts at Johnson Hagood Stadium, which had been put on hold after complaints by local residents who feared the added traffic and noise.

Then there’s naming rights to the playing field and stadium that could bring in money.

Remember, The Citadel was not successful in its June appeal to the City of Charleston’s Board of Zoning Appeals for approval for the outdoor series. The school was defeated by a combination of NIMBY-ism and an unfriendly zoning board (the vote was 7-0 against The Citadel).

Of course, the board couldn’t outright tell the military college that any concerts at Johnson Hagood Stadium are off the table. Otherwise, other neighborhoods could presumably block similar events at venues all over the city (as The Citadel’s VP for communications noted in the linked article). However, it is reasonable to expect that the same people who opposed the concert series will continue to fight against any major events held at the stadium, so relying on that as a regular source of income might be a dicey proposition.

It seems to me that profiting off naming rights to the stadium would also be hard to accomplish. You can’t rename Johnson Hagood Stadium right now without violating the state’s Heritage Act (unless two-thirds of state lawmakers could be convinced to approve a name change; good luck with that).

Until or unless the Heritage Act is successfully challenged in court, I’m not sure what The Citadel can do. And even if that were to happen, it is possible potential candidates for naming rights (banks, grocery stores, etc.) would be hesitant to be the “replacement” name under those circumstances.

The NCAA settlement [the “House” case] and what it will mean for The Citadel has been one of the many reasons for the delay in finishing the east side stands at Johnson Hagood Stadium...But the pandemic and other delays, including funding for the $5 million project, have postponed construction.

Capaccio said he hopes to have the east side stands ready for the 2025 football season.

“We have more than $3 million on hand and more than enough pledges to cover the rest,” Walters said.

I would be very pleasantly surprised if the rebuilt East stands are ready by the time the 2025 football campaign rolls around. The first game of the season next year is a home game on August 30 against North Dakota State.

It would be nice if the stadium were ready when the Bison’s travelling supporters arrive in Charleston. I just find that timeline hard to believe, particularly given the history of the project. I will be happy if my skepticism is unfounded.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the phrase “many reasons for the delay” is doing a lot of work in that paragraph. There seems to be a lag of about a year in the overall approval process which cannot be easily explained by COVID-19, related construction issues, or general fundraising.

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Moving on down

One of the biggest fears from alumni is that the administration and athletic department will grow weary of the constant losing and financial struggles and decide to drop down to Division II or even Division III, where no athletic scholarships are awarded, to save money and be more competitive…

Walters said there’s no plan to move down in classifications.

“Not on my watch,” he said. “We’re not going Division II.”

Here, at least, there appears to be near-unanimity on a topic, and I was glad to see it. Dropping down a division (or two) would be a terrible idea on a lot of levels, and also completely unnecessary.

Besides the likely exodus of donors mentioned in the story, Division III makes no sense from a geographic perspective. What schools would The Citadel even play? There are no D3 football schools in South Carolina. There are two in Georgia — Berry and LaGrange. The North Carolina institutions with D3 football programs are Brevard, Greensboro College, Guilford, Methodist, and North Carolina Wesleyan.

That obviously wouldn’t work for The Citadel.

As for Division II, I get the impression that more schools are trying to leave that tier than move to it. And here again, the list of local institutions in the division do not as a group “match up” with The Citadel from a historical or practical standpoint. (D2 football schools in South Carolina: Allen, Benedict, Erskine, Limestone, Newberry, North Greenville.)

In terms of dropping down, VMI actually did something similar (at least philosophically) at the beginning of the century when it left the SoCon to join the Big South. That move did not work out for the folks in Lexington, VA, and they were thrilled to be able to re-join the Southern Conference after a decade out in the cold.

Now, there is a facet to this worth discussing. It is possible that in the future The Citadel’s athletics programs could be in a tier called “Division II” that would actually mostly resemble the current Division I. If there is a breakaway from the NCAA of 20-40 schools (the inevitable “Superleague”) for football and a slightly larger number of institutions for basketball (50-70, perhaps), then the eventual NCAA setup could look like this (at least for football):

  • Division I — P4 schools left out of the Superleague, the majority of G5 schools, maybe a few FCS institutions with historic success and decent revenue potential (the Montana and Dakota schools, for example)
  • Division II — The vast majority of FCS, plus a few G5 schools that still want to play football but would not be in an ideal financial position in the new order of college athletics

There wouldn’t be any problem with The Citadel being in that type of Division II. It would still likely play the same schools as before. It is just a question of nomenclature. There would also be an opportunity to play the “Division I” schools, as is the case now.

In that system, schools could compete in a revised D1 in basketball, baseball, and any other sport in which they wished to do so, and the remainder of their varsity teams would play in a D2 with fewer financial and infrastructure commitments.

That could wind up being just fine for a school like The Citadel.

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Transfer portal, NIL, and non-cadet athletes

I’m going to split this section, separating NIL from the other two listed issues.

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As for NIL:

Some Citadel alumni are against NIL, but barring athletes from making deals with local businesses would be against the law.

“Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy,” [former Bulldogs quarterback and past BOV member Jack Douglas] said. “We can’t get out of our own way. We need to be more welcoming to people and businesses. The gates around the campus aren’t there to keep people out, it’s to keep the cadets in. We’re not taking advantage of some of the resources in Charleston, people and businesses that don’t really have a connection to the school but could be friendly to us and help us out.”

One of those alumni who might have a problem with NIL, however, is the school president. From the minutes of the Board of Visitors meeting on April 24, 2024:

[Walters] then discussed the impact of the current rules/laws on the Southern Conference (SoCon) and The Citadel. He stated there has been little impact to date for The Citadel with only a few athletes participating. Of those, only one currently receives monetary compensation. The others receive products for their endorsements.

He stated that although The Citadel, the SoCon, or the NCAA cannot prohibit an athlete from entering NIL contracts, The Citadel can and will develop a policy that will impose limitations on its student athletes. Among the limitations discussed:

  • Specific prohibitions on when and where student athletes can appear in advertisements for third parties.
  • Prohibit student athletes from appearing in NIL opportunities while wearing team jerseys.
  • Prohibit student athletes from endorsing tobacco, alcohol, illegal substances or activities, banned athletic substances, and gambling, including but not limited to sports betting.
  • Prohibit endorsement of products which compete with school sponsorship agreements or contracts.

It was also discussed prohibiting endorsement of products which conflict with The Citadel’s institutional values, but it was noted that such a rule would likely raise First Amendment concerns.

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Personally, I think there is a distinction to be made between general NIL rights and a school-sponsored “collective”, which should be a non-starter at The Citadel.

It is one thing for cadets to work with local businesses, learning the value of networking, etc., or engaging in activities such as sports camps or individual instruction. I have no problem with that; nobody should. It would be like someone in the regimental band teaching local students how to play the bagpipes or the trumpet (and being compensated for it).

A school-sponsored collective implies pay-for-play, however, and that is not the route The Citadel needs to take going forward. Doing so would fly in the face of the school’s overall mission.

It won’t be the route most of The Citadel’s peers will take, either, and that matters in the long run when schools form alliances (or new conferences) as a reaction to the “modernization” of college athletics.

I know there are currently schools in the SoCon that are banking on collectives, and pay-for-play. In the short term, they’re going to have an advantage over The Citadel in certain sports (particularly basketball). That isn’t really something which is controllable.

In ten years, there is a decent chance that The Citadel is not in the same conference with a school like, say, East Tennessee State. That won’t matter, though, if The Citadel is still aligned with VMI and Furman and other schools which could be construed as having a similar reputation (a hard-to-define combination of history, prestige, and cachet).

And yes, I realize that some of those “similar reputation” institutions are currently putting a lot of money into certain sports (like hoops). I’m thinking about what the outlook will be in 10-to-20 years, not 3-to-5.

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Now about the transfer portal and non-cadet athletes:

Many of the old guard don’t want the Bulldogs to recruit and sign transfers. The vast majority of transfers signing with The Citadel recently have been graduate students. A handful of undergraduate day students have also transferred into the school.

The balance between cadet-athletes and non-cadet athletes has been a point of contention with some alumni…

…Walters said there are no caps or limits to the number of transfers each team can have.

“We have to give our coaches every opportunity to be competitive,” Walters said. “I’m sure most of the alumni would prefer to have all cadets on our teams, but they also want to win. We had 10 knobs on the basketball team last year and only a couple came back. I can’t hamstring Coach Conroy and have him sign 10 new freshmen every year. He wouldn’t be able to build a program.”

The current basketball roster includes a half-dozen transfers.

Attracting graduate students has been an issue as well. While many graduates want to take advantage of the school’s business program, The Citadel provides just $950 a month to graduate transfers for expenses.

“No one can live in Charleston on $900 a month,” [Citadel Football Association president Robbie Briggs] said. “You can’t pay rent and eat on that. Charleston is expensive. It would take a minimum of $2,000 in my opinion to live in Charleston.”

Ironically, it costs less for the school to sign a non-cadet transfer than to bring a freshman on campus. Freshmen student-athletes cost the school about $10,000 more a year than other undergraduates or graduate transfers due to providing uniforms and equipment.

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First, I sincerely hope that coaches are not under any pressure to bring in non-cadets rather than freshmen in order to save money. I would consider any attempt to implement such a policy to be worthy of dismissal.

As to expenses for living in Charleston, I think the problem there is partly with the SoCon. In an appearance on an ETSU-affiliated podcast last December, East Tennessee State AD Richard Sander said this:

“The SoCon is the only conference in the country that limits cost of attendance. So we can only provide 28 student-athletes cost of attendance…we’re limited as to the [league’s] cap…that’s $2000.00. Well, our [actual] cost of attendance at ETSU is $6900.00.

We [ETSU], Chattanooga, a couple of other places [want to change that], but I’ll be honest, the private schools don’t want to change that. They think it’s a competitive advantage for us because our cost of attendance is high compared to theirs.

When we’re recruiting against, pick somebody in basketball…Western Kentucky or College of Charleston, they’re giving [players] total cost of attendance and we think in that kind of situation we think [the league rules] are creating a real difficult situation for us.”

It is possible the SoCon’s CoA rule might be working against The Citadel. I could be wrong about this interpretation, to be sure, but I don’t think the military college is one of the schools blocking a potential increase in the limit.

Briggs is absolutely correct about trying to live in Charleston on $950 per month, and that certainly has had a deleterious effect on the recruitment of certain athletes. We’ve all heard the stories.

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Having said that, I am one of the alums who would greatly prefer that almost all (if not all) of our athletes are in the corps of cadets, or are recent graduates from the corps. There are arguments on both sides about this, of course, but I come back to a couple of things.

– “I’m sure most of the alumni would prefer to have all cadets on our teams, but they also want to win.” — Gen. Walters

Well, yes, but when is the last time a transfer-heavy squad at The Citadel was legitimately successful? I’ll wait on your answer. It will be a long wait.

The fact is that we have allowed our coaches to supplement their rosters with large numbers of transfers in recent years, and in no situation has it resulted in a significant increase in winning. Sometimes, it seems to have boomeranged in the opposite direction.

Also, while I understand the point about the problem of cycling through rosters due to freshman attrition, that has always been an issue at The Citadel, long before the transfer portal existed. I might add that the constant one-year “rental” of graduate students hasn’t done anything for continuity (or general competitiveness) either.

– There is another rationale involved here. For whom do the varsity teams at The Citadel primarily exist as a benefit? Well, the players themselves, obviously.

They also exist for the alumni and other supporters, including those in the local community. And they exist, most importantly, for the corps of cadets. I think it is natural and right for the corps to be able to cheer for a team that consists mostly (if not entirely) of fellow cadets.

This isn’t just about a pie-in-the-sky notion of utopia, either. There is also a financial consideration, after all. As Miller pointed out in his article:

Each cadet pays around $3,000 a year in student athletic fees, among the highest in the country. That comes out to approximately $6.4 million, the largest source of revenue for the athletic department.

If cadets are going to front the plurality of the funds which support varsity athletics, it seems to me that those teams should represent them in something close to totality. That means the players should mostly be cadets, too.

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Some alumni have also bristled at the sight of long hair and facial hair among some graduate transfers.

“There are a lot of older alumni that believe this place was some kind of nirvana back in the day, and it’s just not true,” Walters said. “We had graduate students playing sports back when I was here in the 1970s, and we had guys with hair flowing out of the backs of their helmets when I was here. People don’t remember that, but I do.”

I wish Andrew Miller had quoted an alumnus with a strong opinion about the issue at hand. I would have liked him to interview one of those who had “bristled”. I think that would have been appropriate, and would have also avoided Walters’ comment coming off as a bit of a ‘strawman’ construct (which clearly wasn’t the intent).

Walters’ quote interested me, though, because I could not recall graduate students playing football in the 1975-78 time frame when he was at The Citadel (he’s a 1979 grad). I’m not old enough to know for sure, though, so I will defer to Walters on this.

To be fair, Walters didn’t specifically refer to grad students in football, but rather he just made a comment about “guys with hair flowing out of the backs of their helmets”.

From perusing the 1978 football media guide, which featured the team that played during Walters’ senior year, I can see how that might have occasionally been the case. Kenny Caldwell is on the cover with Art Baker, and Caldwell’s hair is a little longer than what you would see today at The Citadel.

It was a 1970s thing, I guess. The photos of the coaching staff are instructive as well; offensive coordinator Rick Gilstrap had a lot of lettuce, and running backs coach Mike O’Cain sported a world-class moustache.

However, I don’t think the hairstyles of the 1970s, groovy as they might have been, are really applicable to today. I expect varsity athletes to conform to the current standards of the corps, regardless of status.

That means relatively short hair and no beards or moustaches. The Citadel is a military college. The players that represent it (and the corps of cadets) need to look like they belong, whether on the field, court, track, road, mat, course, range, or diamond.

Also, while a lot of the issues mentioned in the article are hard problems to solve, this isn’t one of them. Just tell the guys to get a shave and a haircut. The world won’t end, and it won’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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Texas A&M model

Oh, boy…

It was during the annual summer talking season in the early 2000s when [Ellis Johnson], the former football coach, brought up the idea of The Citadel adopting a Texas A&M model where the school would open its campus to more non-cadets.

The idea was met with a resounding silence.

As well it should have. However, there is (unfortunately) more:

Up until 1964, Texas A&M required all students to be members in the Corps of Cadets. That year, school president James Earl Rudder opened up the school to women and Blacks for the first time. A year later, membership in the corps became voluntary.

Today, Texas A&M is the second-largest university in the nation with more than 72,000 students. Of those, 2,500 —including 300 women — are cadets.

The idea of allowing non-cadets into The Citadel isn’t even that new. Red Parker, the Bulldogs head coach from 1966-72, was a proponent of letting in non-cadets.

“You have to remember this was in the middle of the Vietnam war and the military wasn’t that popular back then,” said [Charlie Baker], who played linebacker for Parker in the early 1970s. “People think we’d lose our identity as a military school, but we wouldn’t. Look at what Texas A&M has done. They still have a Corps of Cadets, and the school is doing great.”

Texas A&M last year had a $17.2 billion endowment.

I’ll get to the most disingenuous sentence in that quote in a few paragraphs.

However, first let me say this. I have great respect for both Ellis Johnson (who played at The Citadel and also served as its head football coach) and Charlie Baker (another former player who has done great things for The Citadel, and who bleeds light blue).

And they’re both incredibly wrong about this.

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Why do people think The Citadel would lose its identity as a military college? Well, because it would.

Do most people today think of Texas A&M as a military school? Of course not. The only time that even comes up in general discourse is when sports fans at other schools make fun of the Yell Leaders.

The Citadel, on the other hand, is chiefly identified as a military college. If you marginalize that essential component, it ceases to be The Citadel, both in the minds of the overwhelming majority of its alumni and among the public at large. It becomes Palmetto A&M, an entity with no history and no justification for having one.

It could be argued the best thing the State of South Carolina has going for it from a higher education standpoint is that (despite the best efforts of some of its leaders over the years) it has produced among its colleges and universities a unique, undeniably successful institution on the banks of the Ashley.

The Citadel has incredible value in its current form. It might be better positioned for the new era of university education than 95% of its fellow schools in this country — and that might be an underestimation.

Colleges and universities are desperately trying to differentiate themselves in order to attract a limited number of future students. It is not an easy thing to do.

However, that isn’t a problem for The Citadel. You can’t get the experience of being a cadet in an online format. You have to be there. You have to feel the no-see-ums. You have to accept a difficult challenge and ultimately pass a test of will, and you have to pass that test in the presence (and with the assistance) of others.

Not only am I diametrically opposed to reducing The Citadel’s value as an alumnus, but I also resent the suggestion as a citizen of the state. Why diminish something so beneficial for no real advantage (and a lot of obvious pitfalls)?

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Ellis Johnson also said this:

“Seventy percent of Citadel graduates don’t go into the military,” Johnson said. “They go start businesses, they become entrepreneurs, they go into politics, and they are good, productive citizens. What’s wrong with producing good people and good citizens? Sometimes I think the school caters to that 30 percent of the alumni base a little too much.”

I didn’t understand this comment, on two levels. First, I don’t really think the school caters to its veteran alums more than its other graduates. I’ve never noticed that myself.

More to the point, though, is the idea that the veteran alums are those most against the gradual dissipation of the corps of cadets as the school’s focus. I don’t think that is true at all.

I haven’t done a survey or anything, but I know plenty of non-veterans who are dead-set against turning the school into Palmetto A&M. I’m one of them.

I’m not even sure that a higher percentage of veterans than non-vets are against that concept. I would suspect that there is uniformity in the opposition, regardless of background.

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This might be a digression, but I think it is a necessary one. The line in the article that I found particularly misleading was this one:

Texas A&M last year had a $17.2 billion endowment.

In the context of the story, that brief statement tends to imply that Texas A&M began admitting non-cadets and things have gone fantastically well ever since, including an amazing endowment which surely is directly related to the school’s change of mission.

The truth is that there cannot possibly be anything more unrelated than Texas A&M’s endowment and the status of its Corps of Cadets. It might be the most unrelated thing in the history of unrelatedness.

The actual reason Texas A&M has a large endowment is a 19th-century provision established in the Texas Constitution that created something known as the Permanent University Fund (PUF):

In 1876, the Texas Constitution set aside land in West Texas to support The University of Texas and Texas A&M systems of higher education. Today, that land – encompassing 2.1 million acres – is leased to oil and gas companies whose wells generate revenue that flows into the PUF. Land also is leased for grazing, wind farms and other revenue-generating activities.

The Texas A&M system receives one-third of the annual proceeds of the PUF, while the University of Texas system gets the other two-thirds (and thus UT’s endowment is even more monstrous than TAMU’s).

Texas A&M’s share of the PUF return in 2023 totaled slightly over $410 million. That’s for one year. It will get more money this year, and even more cash next year, and presumably every year after that as long as the wells don’t completely run dry.

The provision that set up TAMU (and UT) for all that moolah was enacted 88 years before the school began admitting non-cadets.

The reference to Texas A&M’s endowment should not have been in the article.

The Citadel doesn’t need to be like Texas A&M, and it couldn’t be like Texas A&M even if everyone wanted that outcome. And most people don’t anyway.

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Earlier this week, there was another piece in The Post and Courier about The Citadel’s future in athletics, this one in the form of a column by Scott Hamilton that was centered around the upcoming search for a new director of athletics. I wanted to highlight one part of it:

Some initial thoughts are if The Citadel might consider moving down a level. Should dropping to Division II – or perhaps even Division III – be on the table?

“No, they just need to know exactly who they are and what their mission is,” said Rob Yowell, president of Arizona-based Gemini Sports. “And that’s (to be) more like West Point, Annapolis and Air Force. Not Coastal Carolina, Liberty and Louisiana-Monroe.”

Yowell, whose firm runs major events such as the PGA Tour’s Waste Management Phoenix Open and the Fiesta Bowl, is spot-on. Having an identity would simplify things so much. The service academies embrace who they are, just as traditional Group of 5 schools realize they’re not competing on and off the field with the likes of Alabama and Ohio State.

It is nice to read something as perceptive as that from an outsider — in this case, a Duke graduate who lives in Phoenix. Wonders will never cease.

I will say that The Citadel does share some things in common with Coastal Carolina and ULM, so it isn’t an “exact opposite” comparison when it comes to those two schools (and coincidentally, the AD at Louisiana-Monroe is John Hartwell, a graduate of The Citadel).

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“There are a lot of older alumni that believe this place was some kind of nirvana back in the day, and it’s just not true,” Walters said.

Walters is 100% correct about that. I can sympathize with him as he tries to navigate the school through a lot of choppy water, trying to justify various decisions to alumni, a few of whom think it is still 1950, or who wish it were still 1950.

In terms of sports, this is a very trying time for the military college. I believe that the current climate in college athletics is the worst it could be from The Citadel’s perspective since the Sanity Code was enacted in 1948.

Of course, we all know what happened then. The Citadel became one of the famed “Sinful Seven”, and the Sanity Code was eventually revoked.

It didn’t come without controversy, however. For one thing, an attempt was made to expel those seven schools from the NCAA in 1950 — not put them in probation, mind you (probation as we know it today didn’t exist) — but throw them out of the association entirely.

And more than half of the schools in the NCAA voted to expel The Citadel, and the other six schools.

That’s right. Of the 203 delegates, 111 of them cast a ballot to toss out The Citadel and company. The president of the NCAA actually announced that the motion had passed — and then he was reminded that a two-thirds super-majority was needed, and that the motion had thus failed by 25 votes.

That failure essentially ended the long-term viability of the Sanity Code (though it wasn’t formally repealed until the following year).

I think about that occasionally. It is a reminder that things are always going to be a bit testy for The Citadel when it comes to its place in college sports. More than half of its fellow NCAA members once voted to throw the school out of the club.

It is also not strictly coincidental that The Citadel struggled mightily in varsity athletics in the years following the original enactment of the Sanity Code (there were admittedly other reasons too).

From 1948 through 1954, the Bulldogs’ football program had a record of 21-44-1, with no winning seasons in those seven years. In basketball it was even worse. From 1949 through 1956, the hoopsters were 28-135.

Does that sound vaguely familiar?

Things changed, though. The climate around college athletics eventually turned a bit (not too much) in The Citadel’s favor. By the late 1950s, backed by a new school president who didn’t like to lose, and playing in a conference with schools much more on its level than in the previous 20 years, The Citadel started winning consistently in almost all sports.

That can happen again. It will require patience, though. I just hope the folks running the institution (and the alumni and other supporters) maintain that patience.

I want to win, too. I just don’t want to throw away what makes The Citadel great in the process.

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2020 Football, Game 3: The Citadel vs. Eastern Kentucky

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel vs. Eastern Kentucky, to be played at historic Johnson Hagood Stadium, with kickoff at 1:00 pm ET on September 26, 2020.

The game will be streamed on ESPN3. Kevin Fitzgerald will handle play-by-play, while Brandon McCladdie supplies the analysis.

The contest can be heard on radio via the various affiliates of The Citadel Sports Network. WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station. 

Luke Mauro (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) calls the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze. 

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The Citadel Sports Network — 2020 radio affiliates

Charleston: WQNT 1450 AM/92.1 FM/102.1 FM (Flagship)
Columbia: WQXL 1470 AM/100.7 FM
Sumter: WDXY 1240 AM/105.9 FM

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Links of interest:

– Game preview in The Post and Courier

– Game notes from The Citadel and Eastern Kentucky

– A home game like none other

– The SoCon isn’t playing football this fall

– Preview on The Citadel’s website

– Preview on Eastern Kentucky’s website

– Brent Thompson’s 9/21 press conference

– The Brent Thompson Show (9/23)

– There will be pods in the stands at Johnson Hagood Stadium on September 26. Yes, pods.

–  Eastern Kentucky vs. Marshall (WatchESPN video)

–  EKU is playing nine games in the fall and eschewing the spring, and it may have the right idea

–  Athlon Sports preview of the game

–  EKU student newspaper game preview

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I was not aware the radio broadcasts of The Citadel’s football games were available “on demand”, but that is in fact the case. Here they are. Link

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Obviously, things could have gone better for the Bulldogs in the first two games of the season. I think it is fair for fans to be mildly disappointed in the team’s play.

However, it hasn’t been a complete debacle (though at times in the first half against Clemson, it did seem like one). Quick observations, mostly of the “well, of course” variety:

  • Clemson is really good. Some of our defensive backs had good coverage and still got burned. I’m not going to worry about that, as this time next year Trevor Lawrence will probably be doing the same thing to NFL pro bowlers.
  • It’s tough to operate a run-intensive offense when you don’t have any experienced running backs.
  • That said, there is no excuse for all the pre-snap penalties. In two games, The Citadel has been called for 9 false starts and two delay-of-game infractions. I don’t care who you’re playing with or against, that’s way too many. The Bulldogs cannot afford those kinds of mistakes; they tend to short-circuit drives.
  • The defense has not played that badly, in my opinion. Tackling has been a little bit of an issue, but what the Bulldogs’ D really needs are more forced turnovers.
  • Special teams (one notable gaffe aside) have been okay. I thought Clemson should have been called for a penalty on its long punt return, but those are the breaks.
  • There were two occasions against Clemson that The Citadel elected to punt on 4th down, when I thought Brent Thompson should have gone for it. It wasn’t a big deal, but in a game like that, you should go for it whenever possible.

Oh, one other thing…

I applaud Thompson for not agreeing to shorten the game:

“We came here to play 60 minutes of football, and that’s what we were going to do,” Thompson said. “It didn’t matter whether I was going to get beat by 100 or get beat by 50. We were going to stand in there and play a full 60 minutes of football.

“They wanted to shorten (the quarters) to 10 minutes, but that’s not what we came here to do. That’s not what we’re about, that’s not what The Citadel is about, and I’m not going to cave in to that at all.”

Exactly right, coach. Exactly right.

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Eastern Kentucky is located in Richmond, Kentucky, a little over 500 miles from Charleston. The school was founded in 1906…or maybe 1874. It depends on how you look at it:

The Kentucky General Assembly of 1906 enacted legislation establishing the Eastern Kentucky State Normal School. Governor J.C. Beckham signed the bill into law on March 21, 1906. On May 7 of that year, the Normal School Commission, meeting in Louisville, selected the campus of the old Central University, founded in 1874 in Richmond, as the site of the new school. On June 2, 1906, Ruric Nevel Roark was chosen President of the Normal School and the training of teachers was begun.

Ruric Nevel Roark (now that’s a name) led the institution until 1909, when he died of brain cancer. He was succeeded as school president by his wife, Mary Creegan Roark, which was unusual for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that at the time, women did not have the right to vote.

The college became a four-year institution in 1925. It was renamed Eastern Kentucky University in 1966. There are currently a little over 13,000 undergraduates at EKU, along with more than 2,000 graduate students. Most of the students are ensconced on the main campus, a rural setting of about 900 acres.

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Eastern Kentucky was an early power in I-AA after the split of Division I football in 1978. The Colonels made four consecutive I-AA championship games between 1979 and 1982, winning two of them (the ’82 team finished 13-0).

The coach of those teams, and of many other EKU squads, was Roy Kidd, who won 314 games in a 39-year stint as head coach of the Colonels. While his later teams never quite reached the lofty heights of those outfits from the early 1980s, Kidd regularly won OVC titles and made NCAA appearances until the late 1990s. EKU finished with a winning record in each of his final 25 seasons as head coach.

After Kidd retired, he was succeeded by Danny Hope, who (like Kidd) was an alumnus of EKU. Hope won one conference title in five years before leaving to become (after a one-year wait) the head coach at Purdue.

The next coach charged with recreating the magic was Dean Hood, who spent seven years at Eastern Kentucky, winning two league crowns and making three NCAA trips. However, all three of those postseason appearances ended in the first round (in fact, EKU has not won a playoff game since 1994).

Following Hood (who is now the head coach at Murray State), Eastern Kentucky hired Mark Elder, who lasted four seasons. None of his teams reached the postseason, and his contract was not renewed after the 2019 campaign.

EKU’s new coach is Walt Wells, who previously served as an assistant at the school to both Kidd and Hood. This is Wells’ first head coaching job in a career that began in 1994 and has included stops at six universities and two high schools. For the last two seasons, Wells was a quality control assistant at Kentucky.

His specialty is the offensive line, as he coached the OL unit at EKU, New Mexico State, Western Kentucky, South Florida, and Tennessee. Wells played at Austin Peay before transferring to get his bachelor’s degree at Belmont.

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While The Citadel and Eastern Kentucky have never met on the gridiron, there was a time in the mid-1990s when some folks at EKU would have been willing to play the Bulldogs on an annual basis, because they were very interested in joining the Southern Conference. From an Associated Press story dated June 25, 1995:

…for most of [Eastern Kentucky’s] coaches, however, it’s time to make a turn to the Southern Conference.

“It’s time that Eastern probably takes a good, hard look at maybe getting in the Southern Conference,” said EKU coach Roy Kidd, adding that all its sports programs “should take a good look at the Southern Conference.”

Southern Conference officials visited EKU in the early 1990s to evaluate the school as a possible member.

Eastern Kentucky’s president at the time was Hanley Funderburk, who advocated reducing the scholarship limit in I-AA from 63 to 45. I think it is reasonable to suggest that Funderburk was not on the same page with many of the school’s coaches (including Kidd) on the subject of conference affiliation — and perhaps a few other things as well.

It appears that some of the coaches were also unhappy with the OVC adding schools to its membership that were “so far away” from Eastern Kentucky, including UT-Martin, Southeast Missouri State, and Eastern Illinois.

(It should be pointed out that all three of those schools are geographically closer to Eastern Kentucky than is The Citadel.)

At the time, the SoCon was at ten schools, but everyone in the conference knew that Marshall was ready to bolt as soon as it got a chance to move to I-A. That happened in 1997, but the league elected to focus more on basketball in adding new members, bringing in UNC-Greensboro (along with Wofford) and, a year later, College of Charleston.

I don’t know if EKU was still interested in affiliating with the SoCon by 1997 (Funderburk remained as president of the school until 1998). One thing that clearly did not change was the scholarship limit.

—

In recent years, Eastern Kentucky angled for another conference affiliation. This time, however, the aim wasn’t the SoCon, but the Sun Belt. From an article in 2013:

In college football circles in the commonwealth, the scuttlebutt about Eastern Kentucky University in recent weeks has been rampant. Word is that Eastern, under its new president, Michael T. Benson, is considering moving its football program into the Football Bowl Sub-Division.

The rumors are true.

“There is some discussion of that,” EKU Athletics Director Mark Sandy…”It would be a big decision by our Board (of Regents) and president.”

Sandy said the idea of EKU joining Kentucky, Louisville and Western Kentucky in the FBS is not as simple as Eastern just deciding to make the move.

[…]”You can’t just decide you want to move your program up,” [Sandy] said. “You have to have a conference invite you. So, unless or until that happens, it’s just something we are taking a look at.”

Sandy mentioned the Sun Belt Conference — which Western is leaving after this school year to join Conference-USA — or the Mid-American Conference as possible FBS leagues that could be a good fit for EKU…

…WKU, Eastern’s historic rival, made the move in 2009. The success that Western, which made a bowl game last season and has now beaten UK two years in a row, has enjoyed has not gone unnoticed in Richmond.

“We’ve kind of kept our eyes on the things Western Kentucky has done,” Sandy said. “That is something that we’ve factored into our thinking.”

A move from the FCS to the FBS would require a significant financial investment by EKU into its football program. It would mean going from a level that allows 63 football scholarships to one where there are 85 such players. “There would also be a need to enhance our facilities, there’s no question about that,” Sandy said.

At this point, Sandy said its premature to attach any timetable to it if or when EKU will try to make a step up in football classification. “Too soon to tell,” he said. “It’s something we’re going to look at and see if we are a viable candidate.”

By 2014, Eastern Kentucky had decided it was definitely a viable FBS candidate, applying to join the Sun Belt that year. It applied the following year as well.

Even though the university is planning a campus-wide construction boom of over $200 million dollars, the Sun Belt had facility questions, leading EKU to revise [its proposal].

So EKU pitched a $10 million stadium renovation.

“If you were to look at our athletic facilities, not a lot has been done to them over the last two, three decades,” EKU President Michael Benson told SB Nation. “I think that was particularly noticeable with our football stadium, which, when it was built in the late 1960s, it was one of the biggest in I-AA football. The bones of it are probably pretty good. It doesn’t have any of the amenities that one expects to see at an FBS level.

“The input we got back from the Sun Belt was that we needed to focus on football, softball, and baseball. We’ve already done the improvements to our basketball facility, and now it’s a great arena.”

In the end, the Sun Belt chose Coastal Carolina over Eastern Kentucky. It appears EKU will be remaining in FCS for the foreseeable future. Coincidentally, Michael Benson resigned as president of the school, leaving at the beginning of this year. The director of athletics (who had been in that role since 2015) also resigned, departing in October of 2019.

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This season, Eastern Kentucky is playing nine football games and is not going to compete in the spring.

…the OVC gave its members permission to play up to four non-league games this fall while holding out hope of a conference football season in the spring of 2021.

EKU said thank you, but no thank you.

A founding member of the OVC, Eastern decided to go rogue on that league’s aspirations for spring football for three main reasons, [director of athletics Matt] Roan said.

First was concern about the health impact on players of playing back-to-back football seasons in one year.

“Even if you play only seven (games in the spring) and then you play 11 ‘next year,’ that’s 18 football games in a calendar year,” Roan said. “For us, there were some serious safety concerns.”

The second problem was the weather.

“Where we are located, spring football is really winter football, at least the front part of the schedule,” Roan said. “Well, we lack an indoor facility. We lack a lot of equipment and supplies to be able to effectively support our football student-athletes with playing games in January and February.”

The third issue was worry it would stretch Eastern’s athletics staff and facilities too thin.

“When you talk about the size of our staff, the infrastructure we have from a facilities standpoint, it’s great but it is not designed — from our training room to out sports performance center — to effectively provide services for all 16 of our teams in one semester,” Roan said.

Moving forward, one wonders if Eastern going its own way with its 2020 football schedule will weaken the bonds of affection between the university and the OVC.

“I’m not naive enough to say that there is probably not some frustration (within the league),” Roan said. “I think, peer to peer, as I have talked with some of the OVC ADs, I think they kind of appreciate that what we did wasn’t a decision done in haste.”

Start with the FBS road games at Marshall, West Virginia and Troy. Roan said EKU will reap roughly $1 million in combined guarantee money from those three contests.

Frankly, I think all three of Roan’s major concerns are legitimate (two of them would also apply to The Citadel). I believe spring football is still a very dicey proposition at best. I hope it works out for all the schools that are counting on it, but I have serious reservations.

What Eastern Kentucky is doing makes a lot of sense. It is quite possible that EKU will be in better position for a “normal” 2021 fall campaign (in all of its sports) than most other schools.

It seems that Mike Capaccio, AD at The Citadel, largely agrees:

“To be honest, they may have the right model,” Capaccio said. “I think it’s important to play as many games as you can in the fall. We would have liked to play more, because I have no faith about playing in the spring.

“You are talking about playing everyone of our sports in the spring in one semester, and trying to manage the logistics of that. I never thought it was possible and was never in agreement with that.”

—

Coming off a bye week, Eastern Kentucky is 0-2 this season after road losses to Marshall (59-0) and West Virginia (56-10). After playing The Citadel, the remainder of the Colonels’ schedule includes one more FBS opponent (Troy), home games against Western Carolina, Stephen F. Austin, and Houston Baptist, and a home-and-home with Central Arkansas.

The matchup with Houston Baptist (which is next weekend) was just scheduled last Wednesday.

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One of the many aspects of playing college football in a COVID-19 world is that you are never sure which players will appear in a game (or if the game will be played, for that matter). Because of that, I’m only going to highlight a limited number of players for EKU.

Parker McKinney (6’2″, 208 lbs.) is the starting quarterback for Eastern Kentucky. McKinney, a redshirt sophomore from Coalfield, Tennessee, has completed 56.3% of his passes during his career, averaging 6.57 yards per attempt, with 12 TDs and 12 interceptions. He will occasionally run the football, averaging just over 7 carries per game (that includes sacks, however).

The Colonels had two preseason OVC all-conference selections. One of them was running back Alonzo Booth (6’1″, 250 lbs.), a wrecking ball of a back from Columbus, Ohio.

Booth, a redshirt junior, rushed for 14 touchdowns last season.

Keyion Dixon (6’3″, 185 lbs.), a transfer from Connecticut, has six receptions this season, including a TD catch against West Virginia. The redshirt senior is one of the “big wide receivers” referenced by Brent Thompson during his press conference on Monday.

EKU’s projected starters on the offensive line average 6’4″, 289 lbs. Right tackle Tucker Schroeder (6’4″, 295 lbs.) was a preseason all-league pick. The native of St. Cloud, Florida is a redshirt junior who has started 25 consecutive games for EKU.

Matthew Jackson (6’2″, 205 lbs.) is a redshirt junior linebacker from Nashville who had 12 tackles versus Marshall.

Free safety Daulson Fitzpatrick (6’1″, 193 lbs.), a junior from Akron, has started 14 consecutive games for the Colonels, while cornerback Josh Hayes (6’0″, 185 lbs.) has started 12 games over the last two seasons. Hayes is a redshirt senior from Indianapolis who began his collegiate career at Purdue.

Placekicker Alexander Woznick (5’11”, 165 lbs.) is a graduate transfer from South Carolina who is 1 for 2 on field goal tries through two games at EKU, making a 32-yarder against West Virginia. His miss was a 54-yard try versus Marshall that went wide right.

Woznick played his high school football at Eastside High School in Taylors, South Carolina.

Eastern Kentucky has a fairly lengthy history with Australian punters. EKU has had an Aussie on its roster in every season since 2009 (one of them, Jordan Berry, had been the Pittsburgh Steelers’ punter for the past five seasons; he was released two weeks ago).

Last season, Phillip Richards (6’4″, 215 lbs.), a junior from Mount Dandenong in Victoria, Australia, was the regular punter for the Colonels, continuing that tradition with kickers from Down Under. However, he has been supplanted this year by a grad transfer from Limestone, Thomas Cook (5’9″, 193 lbs.). Cook, who went to Byrnes High School, has punted 11 times so far this season, averaging 40.5 yards per punt, with a long boot of 59.

Kickoff returner Quentin Pringle (5’9″, 178 lbs.), a sophomore from Bolingbrook, Illinois, averaged 27.1 yards per kick return last season, which was eighth-best in FCS. Pringle is also a running back who had a 23-yard rush in the Colonels’ season opener at Marshall.

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Odds and ends:

– The weather forecast for Saturday in Charleston, per the National Weather Service: a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high of 83 degrees.

– Per one source that deals in such matters, The Citadel is a 10-point favorite over Eastern Kentucky. The over/under is 48½.

– Other lines of note this week (as of September 22): Appalachian State is a 35½-point favorite over Campbell; UCF is a 27½-point favorite at East Carolina; Louisiana-Lafayette is a 14-point favorite over Georgia Southern; Auburn is a 7½-point favorite over Kentucky; Oklahoma State is an 8-point favorite over West Virginia; Cincinnati is a 14-point favorite over Army; Georgia is a 26-point favorite at Arkansas; Alabama is a 27-point favorite at Missouri; Miami (FL) is a 11½-point favorite over Florida State; and Tennessee is a 3½-point favorite at South Carolina.

Clemson is off this week, a much-needed break for the Tigers.

– Massey Ratings

Massey projects the Cadets to have a 70% chance of winning on Saturday, with a predicted final score of The Citadel 28, Eastern Kentucky 21.

Of the 127 schools in FCS, fifteen will play at least one game in the fall. Massey’s rankings (in FCS) for each of them, as of September 22:

North Dakota State (1st), Central Arkansas (26th), Missouri State (41st), The Citadel (48th, down one spot from last week), Austin Peay (51st), Chattanooga (52nd), Jacksonville State (54th), Abilene Christian (58th), Mercer (64th), Stephen F. Austin (69th), Houston Baptist (70th), Eastern Kentucky (72nd), Western Carolina (76th), North Alabama (86th), Campbell (88th).

– Massey’s FBS rankings (as of September 21) for some of the teams actually playing this fall (now including the Big 10): LSU (1st), Ohio State (2nd), Clemson (3rd), Alabama (4th), Georgia (5th), Notre Dame (6th), Auburn (7th), Penn State (9th), Oklahoma (11th), Florida (12th), Texas (13th), Texas A&M (17th), Minnesota (18th), UCF (19th), Kentucky (24th), North Carolina (26th), South Carolina (29th), Nebraska (32nd), BYU (37th), Tennessee (38th), Northwestern (42nd), West Virginia (44th), Louisiana-Lafayette (50th), North Carolina State (54th), Navy (57th), Army (61st), Georgia Tech (64th), Louisville (66th), Wake Forest (67th), Marshall (73rd), Florida State (80th), Appalachian State (82nd), Rutgers (85th), Coastal Carolina (94th), Liberty (98th), USF (101st), Kansas (104th), Georgia Southern (108th), Charlotte (116th), North Texas (119th), UTEP (130th).

There are 130 FBS teams.

– Eastern Kentucky’s notable alumni include Hall of Fame outfielder Earle Combs, health scientist Eula Bingham, and Lee Majors — a/k/a “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

– The Colonels have made 21 appearances in I-AA/FCS postseason play. Only Montana (24) has made more trips to the FCS playoffs.

– EKU’s roster (as of September 22) includes 33 players from the state of Kentucky. Other states represented: Ohio (22 players), Florida (11), Georgia (11), Tennessee (9), Michigan (4), Alabama (3), California (3), Illinois (3), South Carolina (3), North Carolina (2), and one each from Connecticut, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.

As noted above, punter Phillip Richards is from Australia.

Unfortunately for Eastern Kentucky, no Colonel is an alumnus of the Palmetto State’s premier pigskin powerhouse, Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School. It is hard to imagine EKU returning to the summit of FCS without any members of the famed maroon and orange around to lead the way.

One of the three South Carolina natives on Eastern Kentucky’s roster, redshirt freshman defensive lineman P.J. White Jr. (6’5″, 200 lbs.), has Orangeburg, S.C., listed as his hometown. However, he played his high school football in Warner Robins, Georgia. White clearly has O’burg connections, though (his cousin is former O-W, UGA and NFL cornerback Tim Jennings).

– The Citadel’s geographic roster breakdown (per the school’s website) is as follows: South Carolina (59 players), Georgia (19), Florida (10), North Carolina (7), Virginia (4), Texas (3), Alabama (2), Oklahoma (2), Tennessee (2), Pennsylvania (2), and one each from Kentucky, Ohio, Nebraska, and New York.

Defensive lineman Hayden Williamson played his high school football in Okinawa, Japan.

– The Citadel has an all-time record of 6-7 for games played on September 26. The Bulldogs are 4-2 on that date in contests played in Charleston. Among the highlights:

  • 1925: The Citadel defeated the Parris Island Marines at Hampton Park, 7-0. The game’s only touchdown came on a pass from Teddy Weeks to the man known as ‘The Sumter Comet’, Stanley “Rebo” Weinberg. Weeks added the PAT. The Bulldogs’ D held firm throughout, thanks to a tough line which included Joe Matthews, Ephraim Seabrook, and K.P. “Sheik” Westmoreland.
  • 1936: At the original Johnson Hagood Stadium, The Citadel stopped Erskine, 13-6. Chet Smith and Kooksie Robinson both scored touchdowns for the Bulldogs, with Robinson adding the PAT after Smith’s TD. Orville Rogers and Archie Jenkins starred on a defense that held the Seceders to just one first down; Jenkins’ exploits included blocking a punt that set up The Citadel’s first touchdown.
  • 1970: Bob Duncan rushed for 199 and two touchdowns as The Citadel shut out East Carolina, 31-0, before 17,420 fans at Johnson Hagood Stadium. Ben Chavis and Jon Hall also scored TDs for The Citadel, and Jim Leber converted all four PATs and a 27-yard field goal try. Defensively, the Bulldogs were led by a strong pass rush (ECU was 13-42 passing), with the front four — Tommy Utsey, Don Cox, Norman Seabrooks, and Charlie Kerr — drawing particular praise from head coach Red Parker. The Bulldogs forced several turnovers, including a fumble recovered by Jeff Martin and an interception by Charlie Baker.
  • 1981: In front of 17,250 spectators and before a regional TV audience, The Citadel outscored Appalachian State, 34-20. The only football game ever played by The Citadel to be referenced in a judicial opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court, the contest featured a star performance by the Bulldogs’ Danny Miller, who scored 4 TDs while rushing for 182 yards. Byron Walker took a punt back 70 yards for The Citadel’s other touchdown. The defense made plays when it had to down the stretch, including key interceptions by Kelly Curry and Hillery Douglas in the fourth quarter. Earlier in the game, Prince Collins had also picked off a Mountaineers’ pass. Incidentally, the television announcers were Chris Lincoln (perhaps best known for his horse racing coverage) and Russ Francis (who had just retired from the NFL; the Pro Bowl tight end would then unretire after the season to play for the San Francisco 49ers, foreshadowing a similar move by Jason Witten four decades later).
  • 1992: From Ken Burger’s column in The Post and Courier after The Citadel’s 15-14 win at Army: “[H]ere in the rolling Ramapo mountains where names like McArthur and Eisenhower and Patton trained, Charlie Taaffe and his Citadel Bulldogs beat Army for the second straight year on the field where Taaffe took his basic training for what could be the greatest era of football the military school has known.” Everette Sands rushed for 174 yards and a TD, while C.J. Haynes replaced an injured Jack Douglas in the third quarter and proceeded to complete all seven of his pass attempts, leading two scoring drives. Cedric Sims scored The Citadel’s second touchdown, while Jeff Trinh’s 37-yard field goal (set up by two huge pass completions from Haynes to Cornell Caldwell) gave the Bulldogs the lead for good. An ensuing Army drive was scuttled by a fumble that was recovered by Mike Wideman. For the sixth time in seven tries, The Citadel defeated a I-A opponent.
  • 2009: The Citadel caught fire in the second half to get by Presbyterian, 46-21. Andre Roberts caught 12 passes for 184 yards and 4 touchdowns, all from Bart Blanchard — who threw 6 TD passes in all, tying a school record. His other two touchdown tosses went to Alex Sellars. Cortez Allen and Keith Gamble both intercepted passes, with Gamble returning his pick 89 yards for a score — the fourth-longest in Bulldogs history. (Tangent: the third-longest in school annals, 92 yards, belongs to Brandon McCladdie, who is the analyst for this Saturday’s ESPN3 broadcast.)

Note: The Citadel’s 32-0 victory over Camp Davis in 1942, listed in the school record book as having been played on September 26, was actually played on Friday, September 25.

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I’m glad The Citadel is playing at home this week. The players deserve at least one fall game at Johnson Hagood Stadium, and a chance to play in front of friends and family (and some of their loyal fans, too). It won’t be the same atmosphere, but you have to take what you can get.

It should be a good game. Both teams will be looking to win this contest, and I expect the energy level on Saturday to be very high.

There is not much more that I can add. I will not be in the stands myself, as it simply would not be in my best interests to attend. C’est la vie.

I’ll be watching on ESPN3 and listening to the radio call and following the statistical play-by-play online, however. (Yes, all of those things — that’s how I roll.)

Go Dogs!

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Putting together the ideal football schedule at The Citadel

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Sandlapper Spike

I wanted to write about this topic after some recent discourse about it, primarily in two places:

– AD Mike Capaccio’s discussion of the schedule on Lowcountry media personality Quintin Washington’s YouTube channel

– Jeff Hartsell’s column in The Post and Courier

Here are some of the relevant passages from each media piece.

Capaccio (direct quotes):

“We need to work with our schedule to be more realistic….we don’t need to be playing two ranked teams, or three ranked teams, and then an ACC team, and then go into our conference, because our conference is a monster…so, not that we [want] an easy schedule, but we need a little break…

…We want to play close to home…three to five hours [away] at the maximum…We don’t need to be taking a trip to Towson…Our philosophy is changing, and we want to play close [to home].”

Hartsell:

By the end of the 2020 season, The Citadel will have played 44 straight games against D-I teams…

…”Do you need a Division II team in there? Every couple of years, I think you do,” said [The Citadel’s head football coach, Brent] Thompson, whose 10-2 SoCon championship team in 2016 won a 38-14 game over D-II North Greenville. “But I don’t think you need one every year. I know just about everybody in our league will have one this season.

“But my emphasis is on more in-region games. Elon is a fine game, Gardner-Webb, Charleston Southern, S.C. State. Those games are a lot easier on your travel and your budget, and they mean more to the kids. I would much rather play a non-conference game in-state, or at least in-region.”

For Thompson, a guarantee game last season might have made the difference between a 5-6 season and a 6-5 season. And as any coach will tell you, that’s a big difference.

Coaches from Dabo Swinney to Nick Saban know that an occasional cupcake tastes good. The Citadel ought to try one.

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Let me start off by saying that I am not overly fond of the epithet “cupcake” being thrown around when mentioning a squad from a lower classification or division. Playoff-caliber D-2 teams like Newberry and North Greenville certainly weren’t “cupcakes” when they played the Bulldogs. The term also doesn’t apply to The Citadel when it faces an FBS opponent.

Calling a team a “cupcake” is basically a way of saying it doesn’t belong on the same field with the favored opponent. I find this tiresome, as it is primarily a media creation designed to diminish programs that aren’t on national TV every week.

—

Now, as to The Citadel’s football schedule…

Right now, the Bulldogs play 11 regular-season games every season except in years where the calendar allows for a 12th contest. After this year, the next time FCS teams will have a chance to play a 12th game will be 2024.

I don’t believe there will be a rule change altering the current status quo in that regard, so let’s assume that The Citadel will annually play 11 regular-season games for the foreseeable future.

The Bulldogs will play eight Southern Conference games every year, four at home and four on the road. That leaves three non-conference contests to schedule.

—

One of those non-conference matchups has to be a “money” game against an FBS opponent. Here are the already scheduled FBS teams through 2025:

  • 2020: Clemson
  • 2021: Coastal Carolina
  • 2022: Appalachian State
  • 2023: Georgia Southern
  • 2024: Clemson
  • 2025: Mississippi

Of the two remaining out-of-league games, at least one of them almost has to be a home game; otherwise, the Bulldogs would only play four contests in a given season at Johnson Hagood Stadium. That isn’t going to work.

So far, these non-FBS games have been scheduled through the next few seasons:

  • 2020: Elon, Charleston Southern [schedule complete; six home games]
  • 2021: Charleston Southern
  • 2022: at Campbell
  • 2023: Campbell

Mike Capaccio also mentioned during the interview referenced above that Presbyterian is on a future schedule. Perhaps the Blue Hose are on more than one.

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What, exactly, should be the goals of The Citadel’s non-conference football schedule? Some of them (in no particular order) might be:

  • Help the team prepare for the SoCon slate
  • Raise money for the program (and the department of athletics in general)
  • Promote the school to a wider audience
  • Give the team a better chance of making the FCS playoffs
  • Improve the win-loss record
  • Ensure there are enough home games to satisfy the season-ticket holders
  • Energize the fans by playing quality, high-profile opponents
  • Save money on travel
  • Excite the players on the team by playing quality, high-profile opponents
  • Provide an added impetus for recruiting

—

Random musings:

– I am okay with giving the team a better chance to make the FCS playoffs via scheduling, but only to a point.

That is because the FCS postseason, as currently constructed, is hopelessly flawed. It is structurally biased against southeastern schools (honestly, that is undeniable). Thus, it is not a true “national” tournament.

I see no reason to devalue the regular season just to participate in the playoffs. Until the tournament is fully seeded and not beholden to asinine geographical bracketing, my thoughts on that will not change.

– I’ve already mentioned that The Citadel needs to play at least five home games per season. I don’t think anyone would seriously disagree.

– While I’ve said it before, let me reiterate that limiting the distance the team travels for non-conference games is not always a good idea, at least from a larger perspective. I enjoyed the trip to Princeton in 2009, and I firmly believe the Bulldogs should occasionally make trips like that to promote the school, provide a new experience for the players, and reward our loyal fans from other parts of the country.

– I don’t want to play opponents for the sole purpose of padding the win total. That isn’t what The Citadel is all about. If it were, the school wouldn’t have joined the Southern Conference in the first place, much less stay in the league all these years.

The Citadel is about embracing challenges. That includes varsity sports.

—

Finally, my suggestions for non-conference games.

I am inclined to eschew D-2 and NAIA schools, because I think it is probably beneficial to the conference as a whole for its member schools to play as many D-1 teams as possible, and The Citadel should take the initiative in that respect.

I could see arguments in the other direction — and I’m not automatically opposed to teams like Newberry, North Greenville, or Benedict. I don’t believe Webber International needs to be on the schedule again, however.

– Presbyterian strikes me as almost an ideal non-conference opponent. The Citadel would not have play in Clinton (barring a hurricane, of course). The two schools have a long history on the gridiron, too.

– Charleston Southern is a reasonable choice, though I don’t think it is necessary (or particularly desirable) to play the Buccaneers on an annual basis.

Obviously, any games between CSU and The Citadel would be contested at Johnson Hagood Stadium. Playing at Buccaneer Field is a non-starter for a host of reasons, including A) the state of the facility, B) the fact that 80% (or more) of the fans at the game would be rooting for The Citadel, so forcing them to travel to another stadium would be pointless, and C) the loss of a home game would seriously affect The Citadel’s ability to schedule the rest of its non-conference slate in a given season.

That last point is one that several members of the local media have never seemed able to grasp — or are simply unwilling to accept, even knowing it is true.

A rotation of Charleston Southern and Presbyterian might not be a bad idea.

– Other teams that I think would be good opponents in the “home games only” slot: Jacksonville, Stetson, Davidson, and perhaps Gardner-Webb.

– Schools that would be appropriate “home and home” regional opponents would include South Carolina State, Elon, William & Mary, Richmond, Campbell, and possibly North Carolina A&T.

– I would advocate for an occasional home-and-home versus an out-of-region team, like an Ivy or Patriot League squad, or even one of the MVFC teams.

Yes, I know, it costs too much. I’m sure we could raise some money for a two-game series through a special campaign, though. I noticed that there are currently 38 people listed in The Citadel Development Foundation’s staff directory; perhaps one or two of them could help out.

—

All of the above is just my opinion. I could be wrong about just about everything!

Or maybe I could be right about a few things. Your mileage may vary.

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2018 Football, Game 3: The Citadel vs. Mercer

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel at Mercer, to be played to be played at Five Star Stadium in Macon, Georgia, with kickoff at 4:00 pm ET on September 22, 2018.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+. Frank Malloy will handle play-by-play, while Jason Patterson supplies the analysis and Kristin Banks patrols the sidelines.

The contest can be heard on radio via the various affiliates of The Citadel Sports Network. WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station. 

Luke Mauro (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) calls the action alongside analyst Cal McCombs. The sideline reporter is Jay Harper.

—

The Citadel Sports Network — 2018 radio affiliates

Charleston: WQNT 1450AM/92.1 FM/102.1 FM (Flagship)
Columbia: WQXL 1470AM/100.7FM
Greenville: WLFJ 92.9FM/660AM
Sumter: WDXY 1240AM/105.9FM

—

Links of interest:

– Game preview from The Post and Courier

– Game notes from The Citadel and Mercer

– SoCon weekly release

– “Game Day Central” at The Citadel’s website

– AFCA Coaches’ poll

– Brent Thompson’s 9/18 press conference

– Brent Thompson’s 9/19 radio show (video)

– Bulldogs dodge yet another hurricane

– The game between The Citadel and Charleston Southern has been rescheduled

– Mercer has two of the SoCon’s players of the week

– Boxscore from Mercer-Samford

– Takeaways from Mercer’s victory over Samford

– Redshirt freshman Robert Riddle is now Mercer’s starting quarterback

– Mercer press conference (from 9/17) featuring Bobby Lamb and players Eric Jackson and Tee Mitchell

—

I didn’t get a chance to write a separate review of the Chattanooga game, so I’m going to start by discussing that matchup. At the end of this post, I’ve added my traditionally awful photos from the contest.

First, let’s compare some stats from Game 1 (Wofford) and Game 2 (Chattanooga):

Category The Citadel Wofford
Field Position +11 -11
Success Rate 26.1% 32.0%
Explosiveness 0.719 1.745
Finishing drives 4.67 (3) 7.0 (2)
Turnovers 0 3
Possessions 12 13
Offensive Plays 66 53
Yards/rush 3.9 7.7
Yards/pass attempt 2.1 2.9
Yards/play 3.6 6.9
3rd down conversions 2/16 4/10
4th down conversions 4/6 0/0
Red Zone TD% 66.7 (2/3) 100.0 (2/2)
Net punting 42.4 35.8
Time of possession 32:38:00 27:22:00
TOP/offensive play 29.67 seconds 30.98 seconds
Penalties 2/20 yards 3/45 yards
1st down passing 0/1 3/5, 23 yards
3rd and long passing 0/5 1/1, 3 yards
4th down passing 1/2, 23 yards 0/0
1st down yards/play 3.75 4.75
3rd down average yards to go 7.9 7.4

 

Category The Citadel Chattanooga
Field Position 11 -11
Success Rate 45.3% 46.9%
Explosiveness 0.727 1.65
Finishing drives 3.5 (6) 2.8 (5)
Turnovers 2 1
Possessions 9 9
Offensive Plays 75 49
Yards/rush 4.3 4.7
Yards/pass attempt 7.5 12.1
Yards/play 4.7 8.8
3rd down conversions 10/18 4/11
4th down conversions 3/4 0/1
Red Zone TD% 66.7 (2/3) 50.0 (2/4)
Net punting 25.3 -1.5
Time of possession 37:07:00 22:53:00
TOP/offensive play 27.84 sec 25.60 sec
Penalties 7/78 8/47
1st down passing 2/4 44 yds 6/12 131 yds
3rd/long passing 2/2 14 yds 1 sk 5/6 149 yds 1 int
4th down passing
 0/0 0/1
1st down yards/play 5.8 7.4
3rd down average yards to go 6.5 9.2

Note: Overtime statistics are not included, and the same is true for Chattanooga’s final three plays of the first half. As I mentioned in the review of the Wofford game, the stats for that contest do not include The Citadel’s last play of the first half.

—

One of the things that might surprise some folks is that The Citadel and Chattanooga had almost the same percentage of successful offensive plays. The Mocs, of course, had a significant edge in “explosive plays”, which was also the case for the Bulldogs against Wofford. The numbers in that category were quite similar for both games.

On the defensive side of the ledger, my primary observation was that all too often, UTC quarterback Nick Tiano had time to admire the late afternoon sky above Charleston before throwing the football. The Bulldogs obviously struggled to cover Bryce Nunnelly, but almost all of the wideout’s big gains came on slow-developing plays.

Tiano was not sacked, despite throwing 28 passes. He was pressured occasionally, as The Citadel was credited with six “hurries”. The Bulldogs also successfully defensed six passes (five breakups and a pick). While each hurry did not automatically result in a pass breakup/interception, the fact there were six of each was not coincidental.

The Citadel’s offense was better versus UTC than it was against Wofford, at least in terms of consistency. The big plays largely were absent, however, aside from Jordan Black’s nifty 25-yard TD toss to Grant Drakeford at the end of the first half. That play was the Bulldogs’ biggest “explosion” play in the first two games, one of only three plays so far in the young season with an IsoPPP number over 2.

All three of those “2+” plays were pass plays. I think that if Jordan Black has the opportunity to throw the ball more often in standard down-and-distance settings, rather than mostly airing it out in passing down situations, The Citadel could see a sizable uptick in explosive plays. One thing I was happy to see against the Mocs was Black throwing the ball on first down, which he did four times. He also passed twice on second-and-short plays.

On The Citadel’s 11 pass plays (ten throws and a sack) versus Chattanooga, the Bulldogs were in obvious passing situations five times, and in standard downs on six occasions. I think that is a solid mix. It is much better than what happened against Wofford, when all 11 of Black’s passes came in actual or de facto passing situations.

—

I appreciate Brent Thompson discussing his fourth-down calls from the Chattanooga game on his radio show. It is interesting to get insight on the coach’s thought process for each of those situations.

Generally, I agreed with his decision-making versus UTC. Some of his calls were very aggressive, particularly going for it on 4th-and-2 from the Bulldogs’ own 30-yard line in the first possession of the third quarter. The fake punt was also a take-no-prisoners play; alas, it got short-circuited by a fumble.

Both of those calls came in or around what I denoted as “Boo Territory” on my 4th-down decision chart, a graphic created for my August essay on creating more big plays. “Boo Territory” is actually a reference to one of The Citadel’s mascots, though it could also serve as what the reaction in the stands might be for a failed attempt in that part of the field. At any rate, I liked the pugnacious nature of the calls.

However, there was a more conservative decision made on The Citadel’s opening possession of the contest. The Bulldogs had already converted a 4th-and-2 on the UTC 38-yard line earlier in the drive. On 4th-and-10 from the Mocs’ 33-yard line, though, Thompson elected to punt. The kick went into the end zone, for a net of only 13 yards.

I wish the Bulldogs had gone for it, even on 4th-and-10. Part of my thinking is that there are usually a very limited number of possessions in The Citadel’s games (against UTC, each team only had nine).

When a drive gets inside the opposing 40, it may be that taking a chance is the way to go, simply because there will be few opportunities to get back in that area over the course of the contest.

Thompson wanted to play field position at the time. He may also have influenced by the third-down play, which gained only 3 yards, and came after a low-blocking penalty put the Bulldogs “behind the chains”.

—

Speaking of that low-block infraction, I was interested (and concerned) by this article in SBNation about the rule changes on blocks below the waist:

College football has seemingly figured out a way to slow down a good triple-option attack: throw flags…Army has gone from averaging 4.2 penalties per game (10th in FBS) to 6.3 this year (63rd), and Georgia Tech has gone from 4.0 (fifth) to 5.0 (22nd).

A tweet embedded in the piece noted that Army “has been called for 7 illegal blocks in [its] first 3 games [after the] Black Knights were whistled for 4 illegal blocks in 13 games last season”.

The Bulldogs have been called for a low block in each of their first two games. The 15-yard penalty assessed for each infraction all but eliminates a possession for a triple option team, as Brent Thompson pointed out on his radio show.

One suspects the powers-that-be in college football would like to see the triple option go the way of the dinosaurs, preferring the more open (and arguably more dangerous) spread offenses currently in vogue.

The rule changes for this season appear particularly specious. As Paul Johnson was quoted as saying:

Either blocking below the waist is dangerous or it’s not. It’s not any more dangerous five yards down the field than it is on the line of scrimmage. If it’s that scary, they ought to not tackle below the waist.

This is an issue that will be watched throughout the season. That includes games played in the Southern Conference.

—

Two quick special teams comments:

  • The Bulldogs have to start making field goals.
  • Chattanooga averaged a net of -1.5 yards (!) on two punts, but somehow did not allow any points on the subsequent possessions.

—

In August, Mike Capaccio was named The Citadel’s new director of athletics. Last week, he discussed several issues related to his position in a wide-ranging interview with Jeff Hartsell of The Post and Courier. You can read the article here: Link

I wish Capaccio the best of luck, but I have to shake my head at the hiring process.

Capaccio had been serving as The Citadel’s interim AD since mid-July, but says he had not put his hat in the ring for the full-time gig until he was asked to.

“I was encouraged to apply by some people in administration, and it was not something I was anticipating,” he said. “I was happy in the role I was in. It happened very quickly; it was under a three-week deal from when I applied until I was named AD.

“What I was told is that I was the guy who could come in and get this thing going, because I already knew the inner workings of the organization. The Citadel is a different school, and it takes time to get accustomed to it.”

In other words, someone came to Capaccio, said “Hey, you need to apply” — and less than three weeks later he was the AD.

That, after statements like these:

“The challenge is, we truly have an unbelievable candidate pool in front of us,” [search committee chairman Dan] Bornstein said. “It will be very difficult to narrow the field, because we have an extraordinary field, and an extraordinarily diverse field in all aspects.”

Daniel Parker of Parker Executive Search told the committee that the field of 100 interested applicants was unusually large.

“Typically, we have 60 to 70 candidates,” he said. “On this search, we’ve had more than 100 who went through the process of submitting a letter of interest and a resume, providing references and completing a questionnaire.

“We have sitting athletic directors from Divisions I, II and III, deputy ADs, senior associates, senior women’s administrators, with ethnic and gender diversity. They come from backgrounds in compliance, fund-raising and coaching.”

Parker also said there were candidates from all the “Power 5” conferences (the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac 12).

Who are we kidding here?

First of all, why was a search firm hired (for $70,000) before potential internal candidates could be assessed?

Parker Executive Search supposedly rustled up over 100 candidates (including “sitting athletic directors from Divisions I, II, and III”). Despite that, someone (or multiple someones) in an administrative capacity at The Citadel decided, very late in the game, to call an on-campus employee and ask him to apply for the position.

Like I said, I hope Capaccio does a great job for The Citadel. He has a reputation for being an outstanding fundraiser, and the military college certainly needs someone with that skill set as its AD.

You will excuse me for thinking, however, that Parker ought to refund the school at least part of that $70,000 — or if not, explain the real purpose of the search.

—

With the recent postponement (and cancellation, in some cases) of numerous Division I football games due to Hurricane Florence, there has been talk that college football needs to make an adjustment in its annual calendar. Given the number of contests affected by weather problems in recent years, schools are starting to look for ways to make their respective schedules more flexible.

The easiest way to do that is to add a second bye week to the schedule. This is something that has been under discussion in recent years.

It won’t matter next year, because in 2019 there are 14 Saturdays between Labor Day weekend and the Saturday after Thanksgiving (rather than the usual 13). Every FBS team will have two byes next fall.

However, most years there are only 13 such Saturdays, and hence only one bye week.

If a change would be made, the college football season would start (for most teams) the weekend before Labor Day, meaning the schedule would start one week earlier that it does now.

This would have repercussions for FCS schools as well, because it would increase the chances of the subdivision allowing teams to schedule 12 regular-season games on an annual basis, instead of just having the option in seasons with 14 Saturdays (like in 2019).

An earlier start to the FCS regular season could be pushed again if the FBS restructures its regular season. The higher level of Division I has been considering a standardized 14-week format that would require two byes for each FBS team.

Big South commissioner Kyle Kallander, whose conference voted against the permanent 12th game in the FCS, agreed such a change on the FBS level could become a game-changer for the defeated proposal in the subdivision.

“The Big South membership was not unanimous in its opposition to the 12th game proposal,” he said. “However, we voted against it because we prefer that the (NCAA) Football Oversight Committee conclude its study of the football calendar before any further extension of the season. At the conclusion of that study, should there be a move toward a standard 14-week season, our position may change.”

I think a 12-game regular season would be quite beneficial to The Citadel. It would almost certainly mean an additional home game every season for the military college, and with the added revenue that goes along with it.

—

The postponement of The Citadel’s game with Charleston Southern created a bit of scheduling trivia. From The Citadel’s game notes:

The change in the schedule means the Bulldogs will open the season with three straight conference games. That has not happened since the Bulldogs opened the 1926 season with three straight Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association games.

In 1926, The Citadel started 2-1, losing to Chattanooga but beating Stetson at home and winning…at Mercer.

The 1926 team is better known for beating both Clemson (15-6) and South Carolina (12-9) that season, each away from home (the victory over the Gamecocks came in Orangeburg). The head coach was Carl Prause, and the team was captained by Ephriam “Ephie” Seabrook, a two-time All-State guard for the Bulldogs.

Seabrook would later coach the South Carolina team in the Shrine Bowl (in 1941). He is also remembered for driving Tom Howie (the future “Major of St. Lo”) from a Rhodes Scholar candidate interview in Columbia to Charleston in 1928, arriving just before kickoff of a game versus Clemson. (Led by the irrepressible Howie, the Bulldogs beat the Tigers 12-7.)

—

It is hard to put much stock in Mercer’s team statistics after three games, partly because the Bears have only played one competitive game. MU opened the season with a 66-14 loss to a very good Memphis team, then followed that up with a 45-3 pasting of Jacksonville, a Pioneer League squad.

Last week, Mercer opened its SoCon campaign with a 30-24 victory at Samford, an eye-opener for a lot of people (though maybe not such a big surprise to veteran observers).

The game was fairly evenly played on the stat sheet, but the Bears dominated time of possession (35:27), consistently converting on third down (7 for 13). Mercer held a 17-7 lead at halftime and never relinquished it.

—

Robert Riddle (6’3″, 207 lbs.), a redshirt freshman from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, is the new starting quarterback for the Bears. The game against Samford was Riddle’s first as the full-time starter, as he has won the job over last year’s QB, Kaelan Riley.

Riddle had a fine game versus the Birmingham Bulldogs, completing 23 of 34 passes for 316 yards, with one TD and one interception. For that effort he was named the SoCon’s offensive player of the week. He is apparently no relation to former Elon quarterback/pugilist Scott Riddle.

Senior running back Tee Mitchell (5’10”, 204 lbs.) rushed for 103 yards against Samford. Mitchell, a second-team preseason All-SoCon selection who led the Bears in rushing last season, scored two touchdowns against The Citadel in last year’s contest between the two teams. He went to high school at The Bolles School in Jacksonville before spending a year at the Air Force Academy prep school.

Nine different Mercer players caught passes in last week’s game. Marquise Irvin (6’3″, 216 lbs.), a preseason first-team all-league pick, led the Bears in receptions with six. The native of Huntsville had three catches versus the Bulldogs last season. He also serves as Mercer’s punt returner.

Sam Walker (6’4″, 242 lbs.) was the preseason first-team all-conference tight end in the SoCon. He is a redshirt senior from Cumming, Georgia.

Although listed as a backup, converted defensive back Stephen Houzah (5’9″, 161 lbs.) showed his potential as a wide receiver against Samford, catching a 73-yard TD pass in the fourth quarter.

Samford’s projected starters on the offensive line average 6’4″, 293 lbs, though that is including a 255 lb. right tackle (Dawson Ellis). Listed weights for the other four positions on the o-line: 287, 297, 305, 319.

The left tackle spot is manned by 6’3″, 287 lb. redshirt junior Austin Sanders, a preseason first-team all-SoCon selection. Sanders, from Stone Mountain, Georgia, began his collegiate career at Mississippi Valley State.

—

Mercer generally employs a 3-4 defense, though as must always be noted, teams often line up differently when facing a triple option opponent.

The Bears had three preseason all-conference picks on D, one for each level of the defense. One of them, redshirt senior outside linebacker LeMarkus Bailey (5’11”, 199 lbs.), was a first-team selection.

On the defensive line, Mercer features second-team all-SoCon preseason choice Isaiah Buehler (6’3″, 259 lbs.) and 6’0″, 288 lb. noseguard/bowling ball Dorian Kithcart. They are a tough duo; Kithcart in particular had an outstanding game versus The Citadel last season.

The third man on the d-line is seriously large 6’5″, 297 lb. defensive end Destin Guillen. The Greenville resident, like Kithcart a redshirt junior, is one of three South Carolinians on the Mercer roster.

Eric Jackson (5’8″, 172 lbs.), Mercer’s starting strong safety, was a preseason all-league pick. Jackson had seven tackles against the Bulldogs in last year’s contest.

Starting cornerback Harrison Poole (5’11”, 196 lbs.) had an interception last week versus Samford, and also had a pick against The Citadel last season.

—

Placekicker Cole Fisher (6’2″, 188 lbs.) was last week’s special teams player of the week in the SoCon. He made 3 of 4 field goal tries against Samford. Fisher also handles kickoffs for the Bears.

Matt Shiel (5’11”, 209 lbs.) is Mercer’s starting punter. Shiel is a native of Doncaster, Australia.

Shiel has one of the more unusual college backgrounds in Division I football, as he played his freshman year of football at Auburn before transferring to Mercer for the 2015 season. He subsequently went back to school in Australia for two years before transferring back to MU this year. Yes, he has actually transferred to Mercer twice.

Starting wide receiver David Durden (6’2″”, 197 lbs.), a freshman from Midville, Georgia, is listed as the primary kickoff returner for MU, while Steven Nixon (5’11”, 221 lbs.) returns as the long snapper.

—

Odds and ends:

– The weather forecast for Saturday in Macon, per the National Weather Service: mostly sunny, with a high of 92 degrees. The projected low on Saturday night is about 69 degrees.

– Per one source that deals in such matters, Mercer is a 7 1/2 point favorite over The Citadel, with an over/under of 48 1/2.

– Other lines involving SoCon teams:  Furman is a 17-point favorite at East Tennessee State; Western Carolina is a 24-point favorite over VMI; and Samford is a 3 1/2 point favorite at Chattanooga.

Wofford is off this week.

– Also of note:  Elon is a 13-point favorite at Charleston Southern, and Alabama is a 25 1/2 point favorite over Texas A&M. The Citadel’s opponent next week, Towson, has a bye this week.

– Massey Ratings: The Citadel is ranked 67th in FCS. Mercer is ranked 28th (a 14-spot jump from last week).

Massey projects the Bulldogs to have an 24% chance of winning, with a predicted final score of Mercer 29, The Citadel 19.

Other FCS rankings of note in Massey:  Towson (19th, a leap of 19 spots from last week), Elon (21st), Colgate (25th), Kennesaw State (27th), Wofford (31st), Samford (37th), Furman (38th), Yale (39th), Chattanooga (40th), Western Carolina (52nd), Charleston Southern (63rd), UT Martin (68th), East Tennessee State (86th), Gardner-Webb (95th), Tennessee Tech (96th), South Carolina State (97th), Presbyterian (102nd), VMI (116th), Davidson (124th), Mississippi Valley State (125th and last).

Massey’s top 5 FCS squads: North Dakota State, James Madison, South Dakota State, Weber State, and Eastern Washington.

Massey’s top ten FBS teams (in order): Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Clemson, Penn State, LSU, Auburn, Oklahoma State, and Washington. Mississippi State is 11th, Notre Dame 12th, Virginia Tech 14th, North Carolina State 18th, Duke 20th, Boston College 21st, South Carolina 29th, Wake Forest 38th, Vanderbilt 46th, Memphis 52nd, Appalachian State 56th, Florida State 59th, Army 64th, Navy 65th, Toledo 73rd, North Texas 74th, Tennessee 75th, Air Force 78th, Wyoming 80th, North Carolina 88th, Georgia Southern 108th, Coastal Carolina 110th, Charlotte 125th, Liberty 126th, Old Dominion 128th, and UTEP 130th and last.

– Among Mercer’s notable alumni:  music promoter Phil Walden, NBA player/coach Sam Mitchell, and publisher/executive Reg Murphy.

– Mercer’s roster includes 62 players from Georgia. Other states represented on its squad:  Florida (12), Alabama (5), Tennessee (4), South Carolina (3), North Carolina (2), and Texas (1).

Mercer has one of the least geographically diverse rosters in the SoCon, though not included in the above breakdown is punter Matt Shiel, who as noted earlier is from Australia.

The three Palmetto State players on Mercer’s squad are the aforementioned Destin Guillen (a product of Berea High School), redshirt freshman quarterback Brett Burnett (who attended Airport High School), and freshman offensive lineman Tyrese Cohen (from Midland Valley High School).

However, Mercer once again has no players from legendary gridiron factory Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School, a circumstance which in the long run will result in a painfully low ceiling for the Bears’ aspirations as a program. As has been said many times, ignoring the famed Maroon and Orange is a perilous maneuver.

– The Citadel’s geographic roster breakdown (per the school’s website) is as follows: South Carolina (47), Georgia (28), Florida (9), North Carolina (5), Texas (5), Tennessee (4), Pennsylvania (3), Alabama (2), New York (2), and one each from Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.

– This week’s two-deep is similar to the one released for the Chattanooga game. Mason Kinsey makes an appearance on the depth chart as one of the Bulldogs’ defensive tackles. Also, Rod Johnson is listed as the primary kick returner.

– The Citadel has a 3-5-1 record on games played on September 22, including a 2-1 mark in SoCon play. The three wins:

  • 1962: 19-0 over Davidson, in a game played at Johnson Hagood Stadium. Dwight Street caught a touchdown pass from Wade St. John, and the halfback also added two field goals. Sid Mitchell had the other TD for the Bulldogs, with his score following a drive set up by a Joe Cannarella fumble recovery.
  • 1979: 27-14 over Vanderbilt at Dudley Field in Nashville. Tim Russell was 7 for 12 passing for 111 yards and a TD (caught by Byron Walker), and also added 74 yards on the ground. Meanwhile, both Stump Mitchell and Danny Miller rushed for over 100 yards, with Mitchell scoring once and Miller twice. The Bulldogs rolled up 499 yards of total offense.
  • 1990: 21-10 over Marshall before 17,105 fans at Johnson Hagood Stadium. Everette Sands rushed for 135 yards and a touchdown, while Jack Douglas accounted for The Citadel’s other two TDs. Lester Smith, J.J. Davis, and Shannon Walker all had interceptions, as the Bulldogs’ defense forced six turnovers.

– The Citadel has victories over Mercer in four different cities:  Charleston, Macon, Savannah, and Augusta. The Bulldogs are 3-0 in Macon, with wins in 1926, 2014, and 2016.

– Saturday is Family Weekend at Mercer. I suspect there will be a lot of people on campus, with many of the visitors (but not all) attending the game. The parking lots open at 9 am.

—

It is hard to judge how The Citadel will fare this week, mainly because of the unexpected break in the season. While the Bulldogs are 0-2 so far, there are positives that can be taken from their play to go along with some obvious negatives. However, now The Citadel has to essentially re-launch its season.

Can the Bulldogs establish some momentum? Will they avoid falling behind early in the game?

Mercer is coming off what might be its most impressive victory in conference play since Bobby Lamb restarted the program, and will be at home. There is an element of the unknown about the Bears as well, however.

How will Mercer react to a big win and subsequently being a solid favorite the following week? Also, I have this nagging question running through my head — just how good is Samford, really? Do we know for sure?

I guess we’ll find out some of the answers to those questions, and more, on Saturday.

—

Here are the really lousy pictures from the Chattanooga game. They are not annotated, although the game shots are in order; as usual, there are more photos from the first half than the second, for a variety of reasons (but mostly operator error).

 

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